The purpose of this study is to adapt The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire to Turkish. After examining and confirming equivalency between English and Turkish versions, the scale was administered to 852 students from two universities. In order to examine the validity and reliability properties of the questionnaire, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, Cronbach Alpha correlation coefficients, corrected item-total correlations and t-tests between items' means of upper 27%-lover 27% points were used. Results of these analyses show that the first subscale, Motivation, has six factors, and the second subscale, Learning Strategies, has nine factors. The Cronbach alpha coefficients varied between 0.86 and 0.41. Corrected item total correlations ranged 0.66 to 0.19. According to t-test results, differences between each item's means of upper 27 % and lower 27 % points are significant.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the opinions and suggestions of special education teachers about the literacy learning in children with mental retardation. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven special education teachers. The data were analyzed inductively and eight themes were formed. Most of the teachers believed that children with mental retardation become literate in a way that is similar to normally developing children; but they are delayed. The opinions of the teachers were based on either emergent literacy or reading readiness concepts. The teachers reported many problems in terms of teaching literacy to their students. They provided several suggestions for solving those problems. Some recommendations for future research and literacy instruction of children with mental retardation were provided.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to report the professional development of prospective social studies teachers with respect to their thoughts on teaching and effective teachers. The data were obtained through both written essays and the interviews of 48 prospective teachers who were enrolled in classes in the department of Social Studies at Ankara University. Almost all participants indicated that they had chosen social studies to secure a job in state schools after graduation. Some had always been interested in social studies while others realized that the course work had shaped their views towards teaching.

Global trend into the massification of higher education has forced higher education systems into organizational and functional variety. This situation has resulted in the raise of the variety and diversity of student profile in every university as well as among universities. Because of this reason, the importance and theoretical and practical value of student profile research have increased. The main aim of the article is to contribute to the debate in the literature related to current college-student profile. The definition, meaning, and importance of the concept of student profile, and the theoretical debate on the epistemological and methodological foundation of drawing student profile have been covered in the first section of the article. In the second section, the student profile of Higher Education System in Turkey has been described from the aspects of social and demographics variables.

The main purpose of this research was to assess the democratic attitudes of the teachers and the prospective teachers. The sample of the study consisted of teachers of various branches working at different levels (N = 317) in İzmir and the prospective teachers (N = 768). In terms of gender, 58.4 %of the teachers are females and 41.6 % of them are males. 28.7% of them are 20-30 years old; 38.2% are 31-40 years old; 30.6% are 41-50 years old; and 2.5% are 51 years and older. In the prospective teachers group, 52.7% are females and 47.3% are males. In this group, 18.1% are 18-20 years old; 60.02 % are 21-23 years old; 21.88% are 24 years old and older. A democratic Attitude Scale, developed by the Attitude Research Laboratory adapted into Turkish by Gözütok (1995), was administered to the sample. The scale's alpha reliability coefficient was .87. The results of the study revealed that there was a statistically significant difference among the prospective teachers' democratic attitudes by the institutions, departments, gender, age, social environment of the family, which high school graduated, educational level of the parents, and how keen they are in their professions. The study shows that there is no statistical difference in between the democratic attitudes of the teachers and the institutions where they work, gender, branches, seniority, the institution where they graduated, their satisfaction from their branch and the institutions where they work. When democratic attitudes of the teachers and the students were compared, it was found that there was a statistically significant difference in the favor of the prospective teachers.

This research aimed to determine the relationship between the leadership style of principals and school culture related to the perceptions of primary school principals and teachers. The research used irregular layer sampling method. Principals (5 female and 45 male) and teachers (646 females and 304 males) in 50 primary schools in Izmir filled out the Personal Data Form and the Scales of School Principals' Leadership Styles and School Culture. The data were analyzed using mean, standard deviation, correlation coefficients and t-test. The findings can be summarized as follows: Both school principals and teachers perceive that school principals exhibit more transformational style than transactional style. The school principals consider the school culture more positive than the teachers. According to the school principals, there is a positive relationship between the transformational leadership and the dimensions of co-operative culture; educational development and the social-educational culture aspects of the school culture; and the transactional leadership style and the educational development dimension of the school culture. According to the teachers, there is a positive relationship between the transformational leadership and the overall concept and dimensions of the school culture and the transactional leadership with the overall concept, co-operative culture, educational development culture and the dimensions of the social-educational culture.